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Category Archives: Cybercrime

Donald Trump, Revenge Junkie

Mother Jones, David Corn: “Now that he’s back in the White House—after his humiliating 2020 defeat—Trump has embarked on a revenge-a-thon that goes beyond what we might have expected even from a vengeance junkie. He has removed security protection from past aides who pissed him off—including former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, former National Security Adviser John Bolton, and former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Mark Milley—exposing them to serious danger. Angry at the National Archives for its role in the stolen documents case in which his Mar-a-Lago home was raided and he was indicted, Trump booted out the leadership of that agency. He moved to revoke the security clearance of a private Washington, DC, lawyer who represented the whistleblower at the center of the first impeachment of Trump. He did the same concerning Joe Biden, former Secretary of State Antony Blinken, New York Attorney General Letitia James, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, and others. Trump has tried to freeze out media outlets that draw his ire, particularly the Associated Press, which would not follow his lead and refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America.” FBI officials and Justice Department prosecutors who worked on the January 6 investigation—which led to the convictions of more than 1,000 Trump supporters who rioted at the US Capitol—have been dismissed or demoted. And Trump’s antagonistic treatment of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy—calling him a “dictator,” blaming him for the war that Russia launched, and berating him on live television during a White House meeting—is likely rooted, in part, in Trump holding him and Ukraine responsible for that first impeachment. (During the infamous call with Zelenskyy that led to the impeachment, Trump referred to a bonkers conspiracy theory that held that Ukraine, not Russia, was involved in the computer hacking during the 2016 election that was blamed on Moscow.)”

404 Media has obtained a list of 200+ sites monitored by a contractor for ICE

404 Media [unpaywalled] – “A contractor for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and many other U.S. government agencies has developed a tool that lets analysts more easily pull a target individual’s publicly available data from a wide array of sites, social networks, apps, and services across the web at once, including Amazon, Apple Music, BabyCenter,… Continue Reading

DOGE Threat: How Government Data Would Give an AI Company Extraordinary Power

Gizmodo: “The Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, has secured unprecedented access to at least seven sensitive federal databases, including those of the Internal Revenue Service and Social Security Administration. This access has sparked fears about cybersecurity vulnerabilities and privacy violations. Another concern has received far less attention: the potential use of the data to… Continue Reading

DOGE Has Deployed Its GSAi Custom Chatbot for 1,500 Federal Workers

Wired – no paywall – “Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency has deployed a proprietary chatbot called GSAi to 1,500 federal workers at the General Services Administration, WIRED has confirmed. The move to automate tasks previously done by humans comes as DOGE continues its purge of the federal workforce. GSAi is meant to support… Continue Reading

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, March 8, 2025

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, March 8, 2025. Privacy and cybersecurity issues impact every aspect of our lives – home, work, travel, education, finance, health and medical records – to name but a few. On a weekly basis Pete Weiss highlights articles and information that focus on the increasingly complex and… Continue Reading

89% of enterprise AI usage is invisible to the organization

Help Net Security: “71% of connections to GenAI tools are done using personal non-corporate accounts. Among logins using corporate accounts, 58% of connections are done without Single-Sign On (SSO). These interactions bypass organizational identity and access management (IAM) systems, leaving security teams blind to how GenAI tools are used and what data is being shared.… Continue Reading

New Articles and Columns – LLRX February 2025 Issue

Climate and DEI Deleted From Government Websites, Federal Workers Fired, Colleges Erase Programs and Research – “Colleges have been a conservative target for years. Under President Trump, it’s total warfare on all aspects of higher education — from student life to hiring to athletics.” This March 2, 2025 update by Sabrina I. Pacifici chronicles Trump’s… Continue Reading

Some DOGE Staffers Are Drawing Six-Figure Government Salaries

Wired – no paywall: “Engineers and executives at the so-called Department of Government Efficiency are drawing healthy taxpayer-funded salaries—sometimes from the very agencies they are cutting. Some staffers at Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency are drawing robust taxpayer-funded salaries from the federal agencies they are slashing and burning, WIRED has learned. Jeremy Lewin,… Continue Reading

DOGE eliminates critical federal employees, cancels leases on government office buildings across America

TMP Looting Watch by Josh Marshall – In case you didn’t hear the GSA today announced it’s going to sell off many if not all of the central buildings making up the headquarters of the American republic. Those buildings include FBI Headquarters in Washington, DC, the buildings which are the headquarters of the DOJ, HHS,… Continue Reading

A New Open Source Tool from EFF to Detect Cellular Spying

EFF: “At EFF we spend a lot of time thinking about Street Level Surveillance technologies—the technologies used by police and other authorities to spy on you while you are going about your everyday life—such as automated license plate readers, facial recognition, surveillance camera networks, and cell-site simulators (CSS). Rayhunter is a new open source tool… Continue Reading

The Rise of QR Phishing: How Scammers Exploit QR Codes and How to Stay Safe

Hack Read: “QR codes have become an everyday convenience, allowing quick access to websites, payment platforms, and digital menus with a simple scan. However, as their popularity has grown, so has the interest of cybercriminals looking to exploit them. A not-so-new but lesser-known wave of phishing attacks known as “QR phishing” or “quishing” is on… Continue Reading